New York is Dead: How Sex And The City Ruined Sports in NYC

Sex and The City...The Girls are BACK!!!

The new Sex And The City movie has consumed New York. After all, everyone wants their SEX.

Girls mingling at 1Oak in their new Madison Hardings, sipping $18 Cosmos and buzzing to their friends about how they are the new "it" girls of the town.

And they owe it all to the big 4: Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and the slightly out of place red-head, Miranda.

These girls made New York City SEXY: Trendy fashion, hip nightspots, wild dating, gay best friends and of course... you guessed it... SEX!

They taught New Yorkers everything and anything that is cool. And the best thing about it: We learned all it from the perspective of the depressing 40-something single woman!

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These women made New York City chic. They introduced us to the meat-packing district, fancy-colored drinks and overpriced fashion.

Yet of all the major changes to NYC that came from SATC (Sex and the City), the biggest contribution came from the show's 5th main character.

I'm not talking about the scotch-slurping Big or the gay dude who taught Carrie everything she needed to know.

I'm talking about New York City itself.

New York was Carrie's muse. Just as Philly was to Rocky or Boston was to a certain genius named Will Hunting, New York itself played a dramatic role in the life of Carrie and thus to SATC.

In Rocky, we see Philadelphia as blue-collar.

In Good Will Hunting we see Boston as a mix between higher education and struggling working class.

And then there is SATC.

SATC teaches us that New York City is a town of glamour, big events, beautiful people and MONEY.

And any day spent without getting all that we can out of our new friend, the city, is a day wasted.

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Sex and The City also came out at the perfect time.

1998.

Smack in the middle of a tech boom that saw a new rise in the mega wealth of Wall Street.

New York City was loaded with cash and guys looking for ways to spend it.

At the same time, New York was being introduced to its prettiest baseball player to date. A guy that would go on to date A-list celebs and even be named "The Captain."

Derek Jeter became the face of the new era of New York City sports.

The 1980's were about the booze and blow of the Mets.

The early 1990's were about the hard-fouling, aggresive, tough guy Knicks.

The Late 90's were about the pretty boy SS who looked good on the cover of GQ.

Like everything else in New York City, sports had become glamorized.

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Blame Rudy Giuliani for cleaning up the city or Al Gore for the internet, but New York was beginning to lose its identity.

My favorite t-shirt of all time was one that featured Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley and Anthony Mason on it that read:

"Tough Town, Tough Team."

Today, that shirt might read: "Fans in button-downs, expensive seats."

New York used to have panache. It was a dangerous city to live in. You came strong here or you didn't come at all.

While there was social change going on all around us, Sex and the City taught us this new way to view New York City. And it changed sports forever.

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The Yankees were the first to go.

In the late 90's, the Yankees average about 35,000 fans per game despite being the best team in baseball.

But slowly, the Yankees became the first to fall.

The Yankees became glamorous.

It was no longer enough to have the best team. The Yankees now needed to have the best individual players. The icons that every casual fan would know, even if they didn't love the game.

The Yankees became an All-Star team.

Think about the word All-Star. The key word is "star."

Movie-star, tv-star, All-Star.

Yankee Stadium became a place to see the best.

The best cosmo, the best shoes, the best history, the best in baseball.

Going to Yankee Stadium became an event. This in turn attracted the whales, which attracted the beautiful and SEXY woman, and vice versa.

The Yankees began to sell out Tuesday games against the Orioles. They were making more money and the rest of New York saw this. And they wanted a piece of the action too.

The Mets became baseball's second biggest spenders. Desperate to get out from the shadows of the Bankees, they wanted a piece of the city for themselves.

The Knicks brought in Isiah Thomas to run the show because the owner was an attention-/glamour-craving rich kid who didn't know sports, but knew NAMES.

The Knicks got Isiah the star, not Isiah the savvy front office man. And the Knicks were ruined.

And sports in New York died.

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New York is dead

"$50 for a Heineken."

"Every bum passed out holding a bottle, now every homeless cat is a male model. Out of work actor, bachelor, mesh hat shopping backpacker. With an opinion of art and aesthetics it's a farce. It's time to move out of New York and move to Nashville"

"Every young woman under 30 thinks she's pretty, thinks shes a character on Sex and the City."

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This town used to be a town of edge and seediness. Now it's a town of Sex and Glamour.

Our rents have tripled, our ale houses have become martini bars and our ballgames have become "a night on the town."

Sports in New York will never be about anything but money.

The casual fan has been replaced by the corporate suite.

New York is dead.

And we owe it all to four slightly attractive over the hill actresses who taught us everything and anything that is cool about this amazing town of ours.

Vaya,
Sip

(Pics courtesy of Newsday.com, businessweek.com, orbitcast.com)